Sweden edition

Swedish intelligence agency hit by IT-attack

Published: 4 Nov 09 07:44 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/23058/20091104/

A cyber attack knocked out the website of a Swedish intelligence agency on Monday, just days after several Swedish media outlets and the police were hit by similar attacks.

Police in the dark over well-planned web attack (30 Oct 09)
Police website falls victim to cyber attack (29 Oct 09)
Tech glitch darkens Swedish websites (13 Oct 09)

The National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets radioanstalt – FRA) was bombarded with email sent from a large number of computers in a denial-of-service (DoS) attack.

“It started on Monday afternoon. When we noticed the attack we shut down the site ourselves. Since then we’ve had technicians working to clean out the system so we could start to use the site again on Tuesday,” said FRA spokesperson Anni Bölenius to the TT news agency.

Nevertheless, FRA’s home page continued to be plagued by disturbances well into Tuesday night.

Bölenius emphasized that agency’s signals intelligence operations weren’t compromised by the attack.

“An intrusion is basically impossible to carry out against us. This doesn’t impact our operations,” she said.

While FRA’s primary mission is to help other government agencies avoid cyber attacks, Bölenius denied that the attack against FRA constituted an embarrassment for the agency.

“No, it’s not the least bit embarrassing. DoS attacks are almost impossible to defend against,” she told TT.

The agency’s chief spokesperson warned that such attacks are happening with increasing frequency.

“Lately we’ve seen this type of IT attack increase and there are many who’ve been affected. It’s hard to defend oneself against attacks of this sort which involve overwhelming a website,” said FRA head spokesperson Jan Donnér in a statement.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

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09:54 November 4, 2009 by peropaco

Swedish intelligence. Hmmm. what a strange word. It is possible to protect a network from DoS attacks. Its called vulnerability assessment to remediate the flaws created by the idiots who wrote the programs and configured the network

Report abuse »

12:05 November 4, 2009 by Ozpot

Again another cyber threat story I am seeing more and more of these stories, not just in the Swedish news.

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html

THE U.N. PLAN TO TAKE OVER THE INTERNET

http://www.contenderministries.org/UN/wsis.php

Report abuse »

12:25 November 4, 2009 by Nemesis

The FRA, really needs to go on a trianing course, with MI6 or the KGB to learn some basic security.

Seriously this is beyond a joke. We are talking here about Sweden's security aparatus. This needs to sorted out and fast.

Whoever is in charge of IT in the FRA, needs to be questioned as to who they are actually working for, as this was completely preventable and is the duty of the IT department to prevent.

@ Ozpot,

Please keep the conspiracy theories for a conversation with a psychiatrist.

For your information, Sweden and all other European countries are not in the USA. The Local is based in Europe, not the USA.

We are in Europe, not the USA. Please remember that.

Report abuse »

12:32 November 4, 2009 by CanadianCoder

DoS attacks are not that easy to defend. And whether defendable or not, it doesn't really constitute any embarassment as far as I'm concerned. It isn't like any data was stolen or lost. no big deal really.

Report abuse »

13:06 November 4, 2009 by Ozpot

UK follows US with cyber security agency

http://www.infowars.com/uk-follows-us-with-cyber-security-agency/

Germany Prepares to Censor Internet

http://www.infowars.com/germany-prepares-to-censor-internet/

Ahhh group therapy now that feels better..

Report abuse »

16:27 November 4, 2009 by Zatoichi

How come no comments allowed on the "Ex-moderate Muslim to form 'anti-Zionist' party in Sweden" article?

Report abuse »

16:59 November 4, 2009 by ropegun247

Don't be naive! Do you think that the FRA will make public anything that could possibly show that their IT security has been compromised?

There probably has been attempts at the real stuff and there will never be a word written about it to the public.

Report abuse »

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